is adopted and he is compelled to pay $8 an acre in taxes? The logic is resistless, and any man of cómmon sense must at once see it. If the Single Tax is adopted the renter would be compelled to pay at least double the rent for land that he pays now. THE SINGLE TAX AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF LAND. While waiting for a train at Nevada a few days ago I again read the argument of Henry George's as to the improvement of land under his system. To my astonishment, he contended in a long discussion that lands would be better improved and kept in a better state of improvement when rented out than when owned by individuals. This argument is so contrary to all human experience that it is astonishing that any sensible man would ever make it. Every person of observation knows that rented farms are not kept up like farms on which the owners live. It is not meant that the renter would be dishonest in the matter, but there is little incentive for him to improve a farm which he is merely renting. If the Single Tax were adopted, beyond cavil renters would go from farm to farm, and, all farms being then rented out, the day would soon come when all of them would be in a dilapidated condition. We hear much now of changing crops and conserving the qualities of the soil. How little inducement there would be for renters when they did not know how long they would be permitted to stay to arrange for changing crops and conserving the richness of the soil or building it up. I may notice in passing another consideration. When the State owned the lands and rented them out, politics would of necessity have much to do with the matter. When this party was in power its friends would have the first show at renting the lands, and when it was hurled from power, the friends of the other party would then be the favored ones. But it is useless for me to particularize farther. It is impossible to subject the theory of Mr. George and his followers to a close analysis without seeing that on every hand disaster would ensue. It is impossible but that a system so illogical and dishonest should lead to ruin. The Single Tax propaganda is a branch of socialism in its worst form. Some of the schools of socialism are not dishonest, but not the one to which the Single Tax belongs. Socialism as it is now understood in America means the upturning of our economic institutions and a long step towards barbarism. The Single Tax, taken in and of itself, is popular with some classes of men, and therefore all the more dangerous. It appeals to covetousness in its lowest form. It is dishonesty personified. It engenders laziness and discourages industry. It produces class hatred by arraying the man who has nothing against the man who has something. It is the enemy of the farmer and the business man, and the friend of the idler and the tramp. It is the enemy of the laboring man. It puts the toiler on a par with the drone. It breeds sluggards by telling men they can live in idleness and get have the same right to the use of improved farms as the pioneers who have digged them from the prairies or the forest. It appeals to thousands of millionaires whose vast wealth is in personal property, by exempting personal property from taxation. It is larceny in that it teaches that one man may take and use the land of another without his consent and without compensation. It is a species of thievery never permitted by any civilization in the history of the world. It destroys the family-God's first institution-for it denies to husband and wife the right to possess a permanent place in which to rear their offspring, a right for which the fowls of the air and the wild beasts of the field will give up their lives. It destroys the Christian home, the nearest place on earth to Heaven. Note: The apostrophe to the home with which this speech closes is found in the front part of this book. |